The cloud-focused distributor, which is targeting large MSP communities, also has expanded its sales force from 11 to 65 employees over the past year, says Nick Heddy, senior vice president of sales and marketing.

Praxis Engineering Technologies is an IBM Tier 1 service provider and holds more than 50 technical certifications around IBM's Rational Software Platform, which govern best practices for software development.

Twenty of the publicly held channel companies on our watch list saw the price of their stock increase in the third quarter of 2017 while only six recorded stock price declines. See who was up and who was down in the third quarter of 2017.

The combination of DXC's $2.9 billion U.S. public sector business, consultancy Vencore, and background invesitgation service provider KeyPoint will create one of the five largest pure-play U.S. government solution providers.

Wrapping up The Channel Company's 2017 Best of Breed conference Tuesday evening, Dupler noted that the IT "confusion and complexity" the channel is navigating underscores just how vital IT has become to the success of all businesses.

Deierlein, who served during Operation Iraqi Freedom and received a Bronze Star and Purple Heart, emphasized the importance of communication, decisiveness and resilience in a keynote at the 2017 Best of Breed conference.

"This is not just an Office 365 story," said Tech Data COO Rich Hume. "All of the software providers in our value portfolio are also going through this journey and adding Software-as-a-Service capabilities."

To help partners make headway with customers, VMware's Frank Rauch said the company is offering significant discounts, investing in specialists to help partners sell vSAN and NSX, as well as architects to help partners build out practices around those solutions.